Baseball standout Hunter Woodruff and lacrosse star Alexis Delgado have been honored as the Murrieta 24/7 Athletes of the Month from Murrieta Mesa High School, sponsored by Photos DLite photo studio.

Woodruff is hitting .337 with 2 home runs and 24 RBIs for the Rams baseball team, which plays Harvard-Westlake in the CIF Division 1 finals tonight at 7:30 at San Manuel Stadium in San Bernardino. He is one of the main reasons the team is 26-7 after winning its first Southwestern League title and marching through the playoffs to get to the championship game.

"It feels amazing," Woodruff (left) said about this season. "The brotherhood we have formed on this team is irreplaceable, and we can credit our success on the field to it. I'm glad we could represent Mesa the right way."

Woodruff said the players have been on an emotional high ever since winning the league title for the first time in school history.

"The highlight of my season would have to be when we won the league title," said Woodruff, a senior first baseman. "It was one of the best feelings I've had."

What were his goals this season?

"This year I made it my mission to focus strictly on hitting," he said. "I changed my mindset from the previous season, focusing on one pitch at a time."

Woodruff plans on attending UC San Diego next year to study biochemistry. He hopes to make the baseball team as well.

Delgado was the top defensive player on the girls lacrosse team, which was one of the top teams in its league in just the second year the school has fielded a team.

"This season of lacrosse was probably the most successful season of any I've had doing any other sport in my past years at Mesa," Delgado said. "I'd never even heard about lacrosse until my coach introduced it to our school about two years ago. It was my first time even holding a lacrosse stick last season, and boy was it a struggle.

"Coming out to a sport without a clue what you're even getting yourself into is probably the most intimidating thing ever. But I stuck with it. This season's improvement was a big difference from last season, but I wouldn't change anything about the outcome of last season because to me there's such a beauty in the struggle. We took our mistakes from last year and found places to improve in our performance."

These are the final Athletes of the Month from Murrieta Mesa to be honored this school year. Congratulations to all who were honored.

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